Application of silver nitrate colorimetric method to non-steady-state diffusion test

NT build 443, or profile fitting method, is often used to measure the diffusion coefficient of chloride in concrete. However, this method is quite laborious and needs special equipment. Colorimetric method is a quick and simple method to measure the penetration depth of chloride by spraying 0.1 mol/L silver nitrate solution. The objective of this work is to study the possibility of the use of colorimetric method in the calculation of non-steady-state diffusion coefficient. Twelve concrete mixtures with different supplementary cementitious materials and water-to-cement ratios of 0.35, 0.48 and 0.6 were used for study. According to NT build 443, the concrete specimens were immersed in 165 g/L NaCl (2.8 mol/L) solution for 42 d. Both water-soluble (convert to free chloride) chloride and acid-soluble chloride at different layers of specimens were measured. The results show that the mean value of free chloride concentration at the color change boundary c (d) was 0.306 mol/L. The surface free chloride concentration c (s) was obtained by profile fitting method, which was 40% lower than the chloride concentration of exposure solution after an immersion period of 42 d. Chloride diffusion coefficients obtained by the colorimetric method was not well correlated with those obtained by profile fitting method.

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